From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V1 #134 Reply-To: rq-rules Errors-To: owner-rq-rules-digest Precedence: bulk Content-Return: Prohibited Return-Path: owner-rq-rules-digest RQ Rules Digest: Thursday, 9 March 1995 Volume 01 : Number 134 RULES OF THE ROAD 1. Do not include large sections of a message in your reply. Especially not to say "Yeah, I agree." Those who do will be lynched. 2. Use an appropriate Subject line. 3. Do not engage in a point-by-point analysis or rebuttal of another person's message. It is too confusing for others to follow, qualifies as nit-picking, and it usually leads to flame wars. 4. There is no number 4. TABLE OF CONTENTS David Cake Tap Styopa simple <> easy; Rune Power; Pointless Syst Styopa More Sorcery Idiocy: Familiars Aden Steinke On Gods Styopa Shamans Graeme A Lindsell Inventing spells Graeme A Lindsell Divine Magic vs. Rune Magic ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake) Date: Thu, 9 Mar 1995 11:11:22 +0800 Subject: Re: Tap > >The only sorcerer in any RQ-campaign we have played knew Tap POW, and >it was the spell he knew best...... Tap is not underpowered. > If this is in reference to my comments about Tap being underpowered, note that I was specifically referring to the rewritten version of Tap in RQAIG (Tap ). Tap POW from RQ3 is, IMHO, about right - it is powerful, but not overpoweringly so, and the perception of it as extremely evil compensates well. In my games, it is unlikely that a PC would have been experienced in its use, but it is mostly the hostility of the populous that would stop them. Cheers David Cake >Erik (sometimes known as Sven) Sieurin ------------------------------ From: "Styopa" Date: Wed, 8 Mar 95 22:05:30 CST Subject: Re: simple <> easy; Rune Power; Pointless Systems >Steve Perrin thought > >>with respect to David Cheng, it occurs to me that we need a differe >>nt term than Rune _Power_, just to avoid confustion with the attribute of >>POWer. > >I don't think so, after all Rune Power is POW sacrificed to cast rune >spells. Calling it Rune Pool would be too game-speak. (Reservoir is the >best I could do with a quick pass at a thesaurus.) How about FAITH? I mean, your contribution of POW isn't neccesarily like your character going to the local temple to be life-drained. Its an analogy for commitment to a religion. One could view this as faith in a certain diety, or (depending on your interpretation of Runepower) pantheon. Thus, to get to the point where Runepower is available, one might have to commit a lot of faith to a certain belief system, necessarily edging out others. >So while I haven't directly tested Steve's idea, I feel comfortable >extrapolating that I don't like it. > I think you're mistaken in this. I have played an analogy of this system for a long while, and it really does work. As I've mentioned to Steve, the Harn system is really very close to what he's trying to get to - albeit a touch too complicated in application. Skim those rules, play them a couple melees, and then come back and tell me what you think. I really believe anyone who does this will be converted. For one thing, it is one HECK of a lot easier to run a large number of combatants - something RQ has always bogged down in. (Everyone I'm sure has a recollection of a combat that was particularly long, with each player with one PC, and the DM running 30 bad guys. Those things can take HOURS!!!) - -Steve ------------------------------ From: "Styopa" Date: Wed, 8 Mar 95 22:11:04 CST Subject: Re: More Sorcery Idiocy: Familiars > >(By the way, if we're going to loose fatigue points in RQ4, Tap needs >lookng at too. Couldn't we make the benefit to the sorcerer Permanent >POW? Much more of a temptatation...(Heh, heh)) > >Mike Cule > How about making TAP a method of sacrificing someone ELSE's power for those enchantments that are so POW hungry? Talk about being REALLY evil...that's one of the most popular bad-guy spells in my campaign. I had one bad-guy mage that would make intelligent items by tapping someone to 0 and imprisoning them in the weapon, to serve the wielder. The items thus made generally turn out to have pretty bad karma, too - something about tortured souls. :) - -Steve ------------------------------ From: "Aden Steinke" Date: 9 Mar 1995 13:48:38 +1000 Subject: On Gods Hi All Colin Watson says >Yelm is there as the sun in the sky. You can get magic "from Yelm" by >performing appropriate rituals; but does Yelm really judge whether you're >worthy or not? Or is it the cult which chooses who gets the power. Does the >answer to your divination come from God or is it just based on the communal >knowledge of the cult? When you DI is god really helping you or are you, >yourself, manipulating natural power as with any other magic? Is a god any more >than cult + myth + force-of-nature? > > >In fact, if you think about it, the atheist standpoint may be one of the most >consistent. But an atheistic viewpoint in RQ wouldn't explain 'God' striking at you for behaving in an innapropriate manner - I don't know about the proposed rules but certainly the concept of spirit of reprisal is powerful evidence currently for the 'God' being more than just another big spirit that can grant special spells (wasn't that the the RQ2 Daka Fal viewpoint? been so long since I read that I'm not sure), rather it's a very big spirit that can grant special spells and watches you - a whole different kettle of fish. Also not all RQ gods are forces of nature. The nature of RQ is such that removing gods from it makes it an entirely different game. Aden ------------------------------ From: "Styopa" Date: Wed, 8 Mar 95 23:00:50 CST Subject: Re: Shamans >>Second, take a shaman with POW 16, fetch POW 40. He's attacked by a spirit >>with POW 28. In this spirit combat, neither protagonists can win because they >>both have no chances at all to succeed their MPs vs MPs rolls. > >I have no objection to such a stand off as this would provide a situation >where the shaman can negotiate. I I would think the Shaman would have his Fetch dump the crappy little 13-point spirit he grabbed yesterday and capture the 28 pointer. Juicy. Nice power bank...hehehe. ------------------------------ From: Graeme A Lindsell Date: Thu, 9 Mar 1995 14:13:07 +1000 (EST) Subject: Re: Inventing spells Colin Watson suggests > And what should the roll be? I feel it should be dependant upon the learner's > sorcery skills. Maybe roll against your lowest sorcery skill? (That way > you'd need a rating in all the sorcery skills in order to develop a spell). > Seems a legitimate approach (one could argue for a new Research Sorcery skill, but sorcery is already suffering from skill proliferation) What would creating an entirely new spell require? A special or critical roll, rolled against skill in spells with related effects (judged by GM) as well as against the base sorcery skills? Seems like a simple enough mechanic. I still don't see the need for a system to judge the cost/power of entirely new spells apart from GM fiat. - -- Graeme Lindsell a.k.a Graeme.Lindsell@anu.edu.au Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University ------------------------------ From: Graeme A Lindsell Date: Thu, 9 Mar 1995 14:47:35 +1000 (EST) Subject: Divine Magic vs. Rune Magic > But our opinion of the metaphysics shouldn't really be part of the rules. But I think the term "Rune" does just that, as I explained in my previous message. To have a game called "Runequest", to include a section telling readers that "Runes" represent the true secrets of reality and then put "Rune Magic" inside the game tells the new player that this sort of magic is what the game is about. > > Some people might not want to have real gods in their world; but they may > still want cultists to be able to get "Divine"-style Magic. Some people may not want Runes is their world, but still want to get "Rune"-style Magic. :-). I notice you still think this type of magic should come from cults. We could call it Cult Magic, or Religious Magic, but these terms are in use, and imply that shamans and sorcerers don't have religions, which they very well might (of course "Divine Magic" implies they don't have gods, which again, they very well might). Cults tend to believe in a god or pantheon of some form, and even in a world without real gods they would still have this belief. > > The generic rules really only have to say how much POW must be sacked to get > a spell, and whether it can be recovered after casting. They don't have to > say what happens to the POW, or how the spell works, or whether god vets all > spell-use and shit like that. That stuff is world/GM specific. > But the other two types of magic do say something about this: spirit magic comes from spirits, and sorcery from knowledge and therefore skills. Are you planning on removing these as well? In Rune/Divine/Cult magic I think we have to give some reason why it works: either the belief of the worshipper or the power of the god creates the magic. The worshipper would naturally believe the second, while an atheist sorcerer would believe the first. > By all means give examples of possible metaphysics. But we shouldn't use loaded phrases like "Divine Magic" to describe something that may not be "Divine" in all cases. Or indeed loaded phrases like "Rune" to describe something that may have nothing to do with "Runes". "Divine" magic has the virtue that the user believes that it comes from gods, which I don't think is necessarily true of the other types of magic. For reasons I've stated before, I don't think many cults believe the magic has anything to do with "Runes". - -- Graeme Lindsell a.k.a Graeme.Lindsell@anu.edu.au Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University P.S. A while ago there was a discussion of how a game can be called "RuneQuest" without making "Runes" a significant part of the game. I didn't see the problem, after all Runes had very little to do with RQ2 and even less in RQ3, but I have a simple solution: change the name of the game. It's a lot less work than trying to justify the title with a lot of metaphysics in a supposedly generic system. P.P.S No, that wasn't a joke. It may make good sense otherwise: manufacturers tend to change the name of their products when they still think it's worth selling but the market has a low opinion of the product, due to whatever reason. For RQ, there is a perception that the game is old, unsupported and a failure. ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V1 #134 ******************************* This is the bottom of the RuneQuest Rules Digest. RuneQuest is a trademark of Avalon Hill, and Glorantha is a trademark of Chaosium. With the exception of previously copyrighted material, unless specified otherwise all text in this digest is copyright by the author or authors, with rights granted to copy for personal use, to excerpt in reviews and replies, and to archive unchanged for electronic retrieval. Send electronic mail to Majordomo@hops.wharton.upenn.edu with "help" in the body of the message for subscription information on this and other mailing lists.